Most out-door grills, ovens, and pizza ovens have a fixed grill platform where food placed on.
Despite various improvements and progress in the field, some major obstacles still exist. In most prior art barbecue devices, the combustion fuel is either charcoal or gas. In most barbecues utilizing charcoal, the intensity of the heat generated cannot be regulated. When grilling meat or chicken on a grill, since it is in fixes position on the grilling platform, the melting fat, grease or blood enflames the charcoal or the gas which in turns burns the meet and blacken it. When backing a pizza, because of the unevenness of the oven heat, the outside edges of it get burned. When roasting a chicken, rotating it makes it cook even in the inside and out without burning one side because of unevenness of the heat. Now they utilize electrical energy for outdoor grills to rotate the chicken. The food consequently has differently heated parts (with the parts close to the rear wall being hotter than the parts facing the usual closure door of the cooking chamber), this leading to various drawbacks such as a different degree of preparation (for example cooking) of different parts of the food and the need to move the food within the chamber so that different parts of it are made to face said rear wall. This latter requirement means that the oven door has to be opened with consequent entry into it of air at ambient temperature and a reduction in the internal temperature, with obvious drawbacks.
The major disadvantage of gas or electric barbecues is that an adequate supply of gas or electricity must always be readily available. Using a grill outside, it is hard to find an electrical outlet to connect to electric motor. When people on outdoor picnic or recreational parks, very seldom we find an electrical source. That is way grill don't come with motors.
Moreover, with many existing barbecues a large quantity of heat is retained by the casing which makes the unit dangerous to carry immediately following operation. Portable electrical appliances allowing indoor grilling are presently of greater preference as they incorporate means for removing smoke and cooking vapors. Therefore such an appliance may conveniently be utilized in closed areas without polluting ambient air where cooking is done.
Accordingly, improvements are needed in the existing methods and structures that negate the above shortcomings in the existing systems.
The relevant prior art methods, which will deal with light sources, are as follows:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,159 discloses a portable barbecue cooker for use without solvent ignition means or impregnated charcoal briquets. A turbo air blower communicates with ignited briquets through a distributive port plenum chamber and brings ignited briquets to operating temperature rapidly. A vertically and rotationally movable elevator brings the briquets, at operating temperature, to the char grill, and by conveying rotary movement to the char grill, distributes the briquets evenly thereupon. The elevator engages the char grill for vertical movement and for variable spacing with respect to the cook grill. The char grill is equipped with a support cage and plough blades which rotate with the char grill to move ashes from the cooker bowl bottom for transport to an ash collector. Either paper kindling or piezoelectric means provide initial ignition for the briquets in an ignition chamber.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,561,348 describes an apparatus for grilling meat and the like comprising an assembly for one or more sets of fan blades 11 to be driven by a motor 10 arranged outside the grilling space 2 and elements 13 heating the air so that a hot air flow can be maintained inside the grilling space around the meat supported on rotating spits 3, the temperature of said air flow being sufficient to cook said meat, heat radiators being provided in the grilling space for superficially scorching the supported meat.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,345,514 claims a continuous rotary hamburger grill that has means for forming unshaped balls or scoops or other quantums of ground meat into hamburger patties as it presses them into cooking relation with the rotating grill plate. The meat quantums deposited on the grill plate at a loading station are carried thereby beneath an adjustably mounted, sloping pressure plate which presses them into sticking relation with the grill plate and compresses them into patties of uniform thickness. A flexible liner of non-stick material, e.g., Teflon, underlies the pressure plate so that the patties slide thereunder. To reduce moisture loss and improve cooking, a flexible cover sheet of non-stick material rides on the top of the patties as they travel through a cooking zone. The free edge of the pressure paper plate liner underlies the adjacent edge of the flexible cover sheet to provide means for feeding the patties beneath such cover sheet.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,565 discloses a grill which can be used to cook a variety of items with chicken being the preferred item. The grill has a rotating cooking surface in the shape of a wheel and the items to be cooked are placed around the circumference of the wheel. The heat source is positioned along the axis of the wheel and there is a grease shield positioned to catch grease drippings from food items on the wheel. In addition a supply of barbecue sauce is positioned adjacent the lowest portion of the wheel so the food items to be cooked will pass through the sauce as the wheel rotates.
US Patent Publication No: 20020083940 claims a rotating firebox cooking apparatus. The rotating firebox may be constructed with a grilling apparatus, or it may be easily retrofitted to an existing conventional grilling apparatus. The firebox of the present invention is located within a chamber having a grill at or near the top of the chamber, and the firebox rotates the heat source within the chamber and underneath the grill, creating radiant and convection energy.
US Patent Publication No: 20070277807 describes a stovetop grill having a rotatable turbine to diffuse and spread heat that is carried by hot gases across a cooking area of a grill platform so that food on the platform will be evenly cooked. The turbine includes a disk body that is mounted for rotation around an axis established by a turbine shaft. A plurality of relatively short impeller blades are spaced from one another around the circumference of the turbine body. A plurality of relatively long propeller blades are spaced from one another around the turbine body at a location that is radially inward from the impeller blades. The impeller and propeller blades are punched or cut out and bent upwardly from the turbine body to establish gas passages there through. The turbine is adapted to rotate relative to the grill platform in response to the hot gases that are generated by a heat source (e.g., a gas burner) and pass through the gas passages in the turbine body for imparting a spinning force against the propeller blades, whereby the impeller blades distribute the heat evenly across the cooking area.
US Patent Publication No: 20080168977 provides a charcoal grill (10) providing a rapid ignition and heating of the charcoal, by means of an electric fan (30) that is coupled to the body (12) of the grill. The fan decreases the overall time required to heat the charcoal to proper cooking temperature by increasing the flow of air provided to the charcoal. The increased airflow created by the incorporated fan accelerates the firing-up and heating of the charcoal by channeling air across and through the charcoal. The decreased time required to heat the charcoal to a temperature suitable for cooking, further more ensures more efficient use of the charcoal.
However the purpose and methodology of all the above inventions that are part of prior art do not envisage the unique embodiment of a rotating grill platform that incorporates a mechanical devise using the heat energy that is produced by the grill heat source to rotate the base of the grill platform.
Thus it is desirable to provide a mechanism of utilizing the streaming upward hot air/gas to create rotational motion. The speed of the gas streaming upward rotates a fan that is connected to the apparatus. The entire mechanism is placed on a pivot point to reduce friction.
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the objects of this invention have been achieved by providing a rotating grill platform which is unique in nature, unlike existing grilling devices that are suited only for limited purposes. Various changes may be made in and without departing from the concept of the invention. Further, features of some stages disclosed in this application may be employed with features of other stages. Therefore, the scope of the invention is to be determined by the terminology of the following description, claims, drawings and the legal equivalents thereof.